The effluent from a petroleum or gas well may contain oil and gas, with some of the oil and/or water emulsified with the gas, and under certain conditions as the water forms hydrates. A common way to treat the connate well fluids has been to heat them to a predetermined temperature, to aid in breaking the emulsions and hydrates for the separation of gas from the oil or liquidified hydrocarbons at the separation temperature. The heating of the well streams is usually performed at or near the well head by equipment that must be automatic, as the well heads may only be rarely visited by the producer's workers. Some problems occur with the heating of well streams, as a constant temperature is high desirable, and overheating or under heating are detrimental to the treatment process. Glycol is a common dehydrating agent, and several types of equipment are commercially available, but most use a pump to circulate the glycol. For example, my U.S. Pat. No. 3,025,928 describes a highly successful oil and gas separator using a high pressure separator for oil and gas and a glycol dehydrating agent. A similar oil-gas treater with a gas dehydrator is disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,541,763 of Nov. 24, 1970. This unit provides an additional glycol dehydrating unit to the high-low pressure separators.
Hayes et al U.S. Pat. No. 2,619,187 of Nov. 25, 1952 shows a gas liquid separator using heated water to heat a well stream for the separation of the gas from the oil. The well stream is initially heated and discharged into a gas separator compartment where the separated liquids flow into a lower oil-water separator.
Glasgow et al U.S. Pat. No. 2,732,070 uses a vertical vessel with a lower vertically mounted heater unit over a boiler unit. Glycol is heated in the boiler and is transferred by a thermo-syphon to the upper heater unit. Both units are hot and transfer heat to the treater vertical vessel.
Walker et al, U.S. Pat. No. 2,948,352 is similar to Glasgow et al, above, but uses an emulsion breaker/mist extractor above the heater units. The thermo-syphon is used to transfer hot fluids from a lower boiler to an upper heater in a singly vessel unit.